9/14 Mother is inclined to cry, until snubbed and withered into dry-eyedness by her consort. He is, however, all benignity to me. I catch myself wondering whether I _can_ be his own daughter; whether I am not one of the train of neighboring misses who have sometimes made me the depository of their raptures about him. I am walking up the aisle on red cloth: the wedding-hymn is in my ears, gayly and briskly sung, though it _is_ a hymn, and not an _Epithalamium_: a vague idea of many people is in my head. |